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Getou Suguru gains consciousness on October 31st, 2018. He won’t get to know the date until much later.
It isn’t a slow process, it doesn't feel like waking up from a comfortable dream, slowly shifting to reality. It’s like someone pushing him from the edge of a building, the abrupt realization that he is falling, looking up into an endless sky, the taunting blue of Gojo Satoru’s eyes.
He always thought it strange to look up to the sky, blue and endless with nothing to offer in return. He had done it anyway, time and time again.
It’s more instinct than intention when he tries to take control of his own body back. There is someone, something , inside his head, using his body like its own, as if it never belonged to Suguru in the first place. He is a prisoner, a stranger in a body he thought he had left behind.
He is certain he was dead. It’s the first thing he remembers, just before realizing that it was Satoru that had killed him and that it was Satoru that brought him back. Even in death, he couldn’t escape him.
(Suguru had never believed there to be an afterlife, he’d always known he’d come back. Being reincarnated as himself, that was the surprising part.)
The only reason why Suguru is able to move the right arm in an act of rebellion is that the creature occupying his body doesn’t think he is capable of gaining consciousness. It calls itself Kenjaku. For a fracture of a second, they shared memories and he felt its surprise while trying to understand what he was seeing.
But Suguru is weak from being dead for god knows how long, so he pulls back as soon as it starts to laugh in awkward surprise. In a corner of a brain that should be his, but painfully isn’t , he settles in, undetected from the owner of the brain.
The creature’s subconsciousness is a dark place. Knowledge no human would ever think about knowing. Even if Suguru would be able to understand it, he doesn’t try to. He is but a fracture of the person he should be, a whisper of a memory of something that had once been a powerful sorcerer. He has a faint idea of who he was, who he should be, but lacks the strength to be anything else than a small part of someone else.
He knows Gojo Satoru, his name, his voice, the blue of his eyes. Suguru doesn’t know what happened to him, he lost usage of his senses as soon as he pulled back. But he feels like something happened that shouldn’t have happened, something that changes a fundamental part of the world he knows.
Getou Suguru regains control of his eyes and ears on November 28th, 2018. Kenjaku doesn‘t notice.
The first thing he hears is the faint rustling of autumn leaves. A few seconds later he can see them, tumbling down from the sky that is colored a washed-out blue, almost gray. Small trees line the empty street they are standing on.
A boy is standing a few steps in front of them. Pink hair, scars dividing his face, blood on his forehead. He looks beaten up. Sad, desperate.
Suguru tries to search through the brain for information about him without the owner noticing. Kenjaku surprisingly doesn’t hate the boy. Quite the opposite, It seems to be rather fond of him, even if it’s related to the potential it sees in him. Sukuna’s vessel.
Kenjaku still plans on killing him. For the first time, Suguru senses something like fear surging up. Those goddamn sorcerers have achieved the impossible, have beaten the oh so glorious Culling Game, the plan it had been perfecting for over a millennium. There will be no merging, no evolution of humanity. Just because of a group of children. It hasn’t given up yet, Sukuna is still inside that boy, but Kenjaku doesn’t have a plan.
Suguru thinks it’s hilarious. It’s the first intense emotion he’s able to feel. He himself hadn’t been the best at evil plans, but at least he lost to the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth. Not his students.
He remembers now, better than before. Some of the memories are his own, some are Kenjaku’s, some are his own that Kenjaku had stolen, it’s difficult to distinguish between them.
Names are floating around him he’s still trying to sort. Satoru, Shoko, Yaga, Utahime, Nanami, Yuki, Satoru, Satoru, Satoru . Gojo Satoru, six eyes and the infinity between them, that only grew bigger over the years. Why did his life become so centered around Gojo Satoru?
Suguru snaps out of it when Kenjaku starts moving. It’s irritating, seeing and hearing the world around him, but not being able to smell or feel it. It’s disconnecting, makes everything less real, as if he’s looking through a veil. He’s merely a passenger on a ship, who’s getting granted access to the bridge just to stand beside the captain and watch.
Sukuna’s vessel is running towards them, fist raised with pure cursed energy. Kenjaku is not going to die today, Suguru knows that. It’s still too strong. But with the sorcerers wearing him down and Suguru becoming more present day by day, it won’t hold up for much longer.
The boy is strong and not just because of the King of Demons inside him. Suguru digs a little bit deeper while Kenjaku is distracted with fighting, ignoring the sensations coming from eyes and ears.
Gojo Satoru , he thinks and follows the whispering voices to the memories of a few weeks ago.
(Getou Suguru is still dead as of noon, October 31st, 2018.
Instead, Kenjaku is waiting for its time to shine, watching its pawns lose against Gojo. They never stood a chance, even though they put up quite a fight. That’s okay, they wouldn’t be here right now if they could defeat Gojo Satoru. The man only has one known weakness; a weakness Kenjaku aims to abuse. Gojo just has to be distracted.
When the Prison Realm opens, Kenjaku steps out of the shadows and raises its hand in a casual greeting. It’s doing its best to mimic Getou Suguru’s tone of voice and mannerisms. After all, it wants the experience to be as scarring as possible.
“Yo, Satoru!”
Gojo freezes.
Recognition dawns on his face, mixing with sheer desperation, shifting to pure horror.
Kenjaku knows the plan is going to work, can see it in the way Gojos eyes seem to look far back into the past. The Prison Realm snaps and traps him in place.
It would be so much more satisfying to see tears drowning his six eyes, but Kenjaku is content with his expression of despair and anger.
Gojo wants to know who’s standing in front of him. Kenjaku had hoped he would believe it to be his dead best friend, there shouldn't be a way for him to distinguish between them. They were the same in body and cursed energy, just the mind was a different one, but Gojo couldn‘t be aware of that.
But his soul knew otherwise.
Kenjaku thinks it might have underestimated how strong human connection can be. What a bond between two people can achieve. But that’s not important anymore, because Getou Suguru is dead and Gojo Satoru won’t escape anytime soon.)
Suguru knows the rest.
Getou Suguru stops Kenjaku from killing a young sorcerer on December 2nd, 2018. It‘s the day Kenjaku finds out that he‘s been conscious this whole time.
The past few days were exhausting for Suguru. The constant stream of information coming from his eyes and ears never seems to form a complete picture. There‘s always something missing, a crucial part he needs to truly understand what‘s going on. It makes remembering harder.
Only after a long period of time where sensations are tugging at him from all sides, he realizes that they‘re in a fight.
Fushiguro Toji, he thinks after their opponent comes close enough for him to see his face. Similar eyes and facial features. No, not Fushiguro Toji . Too young; there‘s a distinct lack of cruelty and sadism. The boy doesn’t fight because he knows he will win, he fights because he has to. Suguru can see it in the lines of his face that the boy is ready to go down, but not without dragging Kenjaku with him. Nonetheless, he still seems to be enjoying the fight; even with half his face covered in blood, he‘s still highly focused in a way that almost reminds Suguru of Satoru.
Oh. That makes sense. It has to be Fushiguro Megumi, then. Suguru faintly remembers to have heard of him. Potential Special Grade, Ten Shadows Technique. Toji’s son, Satoru‘s kid. He has grown up, just like Suguru‘s girls.
The realization hurts in a way Suguru literally can‘t place. There‘s no heart in his possession where he could feel a piercing stab.
The boy is exorcizing curses left and right, moving in and out of shadows as if he himself doesn‘t possess a physical form. He’s certainly powerful, but he seems to be exhausted, his movements are getting slower and slower by the second. It‘s not his first fight of the day. The only thing Suguru senses from Kenjaku is faint amusement.
„Why won‘t you just give up? Your world is doomed without him“, it mocks, but Megumi doesn‘t react.
„That‘s why we‘re getting him out of there.“
The boy‘s next attack comes out of nowhere and hits full force; they go flying into the nearest building, stopped only by its sturdy walls. Suguru is glad he‘s constricted to two senses. He doesn‘t remember what pain feels like, but he knows it has to be horrid. Kenjaku laughs. It‘s different from Suguru‘s own, more of a chuckle than maniacal.
It‘s not hard to understand who they are referring to. So it seems that Gojo Satoru is still sitting in his little box. Suguru expected him to have done the impossible already and clawed his way out of it, but apparently, this is the first time Suguru has ever overestimated him. He feels the intense need to tease Satoru about it.
Megumi speaks with confidence and Suguru sees it as a sign that he‘s telling the truth: Gojo Satoru will be free once again.
„What a shame, then. He‘s gonna come back, just to find out everyone he‘s ever loved is dead.“
Kenjaku flicks his hand and a curse breaks through the wall next to the boy in the form of a giant hand that traps him in place, high up, far away from any shadows. His eyes widen and he struggles against the firm grasp, teeth bared to the sky, legs kicking the curse. He‘s gasping for air and Suguru wonders what it must feel like.
Suguru examines the boy. He can‘t be any older than Satoru was when he killed his father. Did Satoru even tell him that? Megumi stops squirming and there it is again, Suguru‘s non-existing heart acting up. Teenagers should not be this prepared for death.
Kenjaku gets ready to strike, but Suguru has the advantage of surprise on his side. How he actually manages to take over the body and loosen the curse‘s grip, he doesn‘t know. The body freezes for a few seconds and Suguru can see it in Megumi‘s eyes, the boy knows something is off. But luckily he doesn‘t ponder on it too much and instead takes the intelligent way out and runs. Suguru watches him vanish in the distance.
„So you‘re still here, hm.“
Suguru realizes he made a mistake.
„I have always wondered, you know. If it was a one-time thing, you being awake. Just a response triggered by Gojo‘s words. Have you been awake this whole time? Or do you cease to exist in the moments between?“
Suguru doesn‘t dare reply. Not that he knows the answer to the question.
„Are you listening to me right now? Or do you only come back with a trigger?“ Kenjaku laughs. „I suppose it‘s just a reaction of your body, then. I never actually thought you‘d be capable of gaining consciousness. I never knew you, Getou Suguru. Our goals may align, but yours comes from a place of weakness, you’re a man too fragile for this world we live in. Now here I am, talking to myself.“
Oh, the fight is on . Kenjaku is simply taunting him, but there‘s a burning determination flaring up in whatever could be described as Suguru at the moment.
„You say that as if you don‘t keep losing against children.“
He doesn‘t actually speak, it‘s more like he‘s sending a thought in Kenjaku‘s direction. It chuckles, a few moments of silence follow.
„This explains why Gojo Satoru keeps invading my thoughts.“
Getou Suguru manages to fully reclaim his body for the first time on the 9th of December, 2018, two days after Gojo Satoru‘s birthday.
It’s like breaking through the water surface after weeks of struggling against the darkness beneath him, the unforgiving ocean that is constantly trying to pull him down and let him drown for the sake of its own survival.
He breaks through the surface and promptly forgets to breathe. Air is stuck in his lungs, trying to get out. Similar to the feeling of having a curse down his throat, the foul taste is still the same, a testimony to the fact that Kenjaku has been using his technique as its own.
It takes him some time to figure out how to release his breath. Dead men don’t need air. He cowers on the ground, hands on the cold stone.
All around him the ruin of a house that once belonged to one of Tokyo's districts. Not much is left anymore. Not even Kenjaku’s many pawns. They‘re alone now. He desperately hopes his girls are okay.
Inhale, exhale.
For the first time he manages to grasp the fact that he’s no longer dead. He remembers dying, he doesn‘t remember being dead. Time ceased to exist for him when he died. Before and after his death are the only aspects of it that still seem to matter. His life ended and now he feels certain that a new one has begun.
Even before his death, he used to be a dead man walking, and now that’s exactly what he is. Killed with his permission, revived without, both by the same man. He feels painfully alive.
How he missed it.
The stone underneath his hands is rough. When he trails the cracks with his eyes and fingers, it’s him who’s moving them. He’s real now, aware of his own existence. It’s peaceful.
Until reality comes crashing down on him without warning. There’s more to having a body than just breathing.
His senses get flooded with information he doesn’t know how to process. The awareness of every single aspect of his body. The cold that’s sinking into him where he’s sitting on the ground, the cold air in his lungs, the teeth in his mouth scraping against each other, clothes touching his skin, his eyes burning in their sockets every time he moves them, the light blinding him.
Sounds everywhere. The blood rushing through his ears, his heart hammering against his chest, louder than it should be, his clothes rustling and bones cracking every time he moves.
Hunger, thirst, pain. So much pain. That’s why Kenjaku let him take it back.
He doubles over, presses his knuckles against his eyelids and screams.
Inhale, exhale.
For a while, he just breathes. Concentrates on his chest moving up and down, slowing down until he finally settles into the feeling of having a body again. The sounds go quiet, his heart rate settles. Only the pain stays.
Suguru laughs. He clutches his chest and laughs and laughs and laughs , forehead on the ground. It’s been so long. He rolls over onto his back, gaze directed at the blue sky above him, debris piercing into his back. He laughs until his cheeks and stomach hurt, until there are tears in his eyes and his body yearns for air.
He will have to thank Satoru when he sees him again. Only a formerly dead man could find such joy in being alive.
The euphoria doesn’t last. It has barely been a minute since he pushed it back, but Kenjaku is still there. First, it’s derision that echoes through their shared brain, then it’s annoyance.
The damn parasite expected him to suffer. Tried to discourage him from wanting to take over, fall in love with being a bystander rather than a willing participant. Surrender his body.
Well, it failed. Suguru knows it’s getting weaker, day by day. And now that he got a taste of what being alive felt like, he’s only motivated to try again and again and again . He’s not strong enough, not yet. But he feels Kenjaku’s barely concealed fear, buried deep down. It’s not just Kenjaku‘s brain anymore, Suguru is no longer just a guest, but more of an unwelcome roommate.
He grins before he gets yanked back and the only privileges he‘s granted are sight and sound.
Getou Suguru wakes up on the 24th of December, 2018. Kenjaku screams when he takes over, loading Sugurus' voice with the pain of losing control of something one had taken for granted.
The fight was already lost at that point. Against a bunch of children, nonetheless. Suguru can feel Kenjaku’s rage like a piercing headache, but besides that, it doesn’t affect him.
Kenjaku is still there of course, but unlike all the times before where Suguru took over the body, he feels stable now. He chuckles when Kenjaku goes quiet. He trapped it, took the pain and the feeling of what it was like to be stuck in a stranger’s brain and shoved it together with the other one in the same corner he had once inhabited. The ancient sorcerer is now stuck in an endless loop of memories it hopefully won’t be able to escape. Still, there are bits and pieces in his mind he can't assign to either one of them.
It’s as much of a safety as it is a coping mechanism.
Suguru blinks when the pain reaches his perception. He stumbles forward, one step, two steps as if he is moving with the wind that’s blowing cold through the tiny back alley he is standing in.
Back and forth he swings, trying to find his balance. His hands want to grab the walls to his sides, but they keep shifting out of his vision, gone, gone, back again. His left, his right. He doesn’t know which is which anymore. Then he just lets himself go, allows his body to stumble around, turn, turn, turn, dance to a song even he can’t hear.
He ends up leaning against one of the walls and the world stops spinning, the right side up. Life, life, life, death, death, death, what does it matter anymore. He’s back, back in his body, back in his mind. Back and he already knows how to breathe, back and he can’t even fathom what his future will bring.
Back in a world he used to despise and still does in some way, but he can see the beauty in its ugliness now. Now that he’d lost it he won’t let it get away again, hide its vileness from him.
He understands why he always loved to look up to the sky when he tips his head back and instead of blue or gray there’s white. White snowflakes slowly fall from the dark sky. White for forgiveness. White on his way too thin clothes, white on the ground around him, white in his hair that’s loosely falling over his shoulders. It’s gotten longer in the past year.
Still drunk on the feeling of being reborn, the snow looks like the portal to a different world, way up there between the clouds.
Suguru laughs again, but this time it’s the laugh of a free man, not one enjoying his own suffering.
He leans his head back against the wall, slides down until he’s sitting, closes his eyes, and lets the cold dig deep into his bones. Allows himself to feel the pain seeping through his body.
Kenjaku wouldn’t dare kill him, so it made sure his awakening would be as painful and traumatizing as possible. His body is wrecked up, wounds are visible through the many cuts in his clothes. The left arm might be broken. Kenjaku’s anger in its last moments had been desperate.
The snow is quickly melting on his exposed skin as if to heal him with the cold water mixing with his blood. It relieves the pain somewhat, but he can form clear enough thoughts to understand he will bleed to death if he stays here.
The alleyway is similar to the one Satoru found him in, moments before his death. Suguru just knows it has to be an intentional detail on Kenjaku’s part.
He carefully gets up, as to not damage his body further and stumbles in the direction where the street lights are coming from.
There are no footprints or car tracks in the snow, the world is untouched at this hour of the night. It’s just the peaceful silence of the falling snow and him, leaving a trail of red in its white. He stops and looks down the road that seems to vanish in the fog. The cold air is as clear as it gets and once again, even in this surreal feeling place, he knows he’s alive.
It’s Christmas, he realizes. Christmas Eve, 2018. There’s a digital display hanging in a dark, lifeless shop, showing date and time.
One year to be reborn.
Decorations are illuminating the night. One of the neon signs hanging inside a window is broken, the red glowing characters are flickering, off and on and off and on. It hurts to look at, but his overall pain is already strong enough.
Shoko’s healing technique would be helpful now. It’s getting difficult to breathe again and his vision slowly starts to cloud. He’s weak, his legs are threatening to give up underneath his weight. He can’t die now, it’s too soon. All this suffering just for him to die a rather lackluster death. So he stumbles onward.
The town isn’t the biggest, but he spots a 24h supermarket at the end of the narrow street. It probably won’t have the things he needs to avoid dying, but even food would be a good start. If he were to knock on someone’s door, they’d probably call the police. He can’t risk that. Maybe he will find a pharmacy where he can break in, but for now, he’s following his body’s need for food. He never thought that one day he would appreciate the hunger gnawing on his stomach.
Suguru props himself up against the window of the supermarket with one hand and peeks inside. The cashier is sleeping, arms crossed and hat pulled down over their eyes. Suguru sighs and hopes for the best when he lets go and more limps than steps through the automatic doors. There’s a bloody handprint on the glass where he touched it.
The supermarket is small but somehow seems to sell anything for his heart’s desire. He ends up finding some bandages and other things that will probably be useful and because he‘s too tired to think right now, he collects all of it. When his legs aren’t capable of supporting him anymore, he ends up sitting in one of the aisles, hidden away from the sleeping cashier, his supplies spread out around him.
His Christmas meal consists of cereal and all the different kinds of candy he can find.
The taste of sugar chases away the last reminder of the curse in his throat. It‘s nearly overwhelming in its flavor intensity and Suguru wonders - again - how Satoru always managed to eat so much of it. It makes Suguru nauseous. He eats it anyway.
It‘s warm here and Suguru is almost tempted to just close his eyes and sleep, even though the bright fluorescent light is hurting his eyes. What an ending it would be. Evil curse user Getou Suguru found dead in a 24h store in some random town Kenjaku had dumped him in. Gojo would at least chuckle.
Suguru’s survival instinct is stronger in the end and he manages to get up after tending to his wounds.
It’s as much of a burden as it is a blessing, being alive again. Because his death had felt like a good way to go: killed by a loved one, dead at the hands of someone he deemed worthy. A very poetic death, he supposes. A proper end for his life’s story. Now he will have to do it all over again someday and there’s no guarantee it will be just as fitting.
But it just goes to show that his story hadn’t been over. Where to go from here on out would be the more difficult part.
Suguru still thinks he is right. He doesn’t regret believing in the things he believes in. He doesn’t regret massacring that village, he doesn’t regret saving two innocent girls that desperately needed his help, he doesn’t regret becoming someone the jujutsu world labels evil. He doesn’t regret killing his parents.
Regret is such a strong emotion, he can’t allow himself to feel it. It’s restricting, makes him overthink every single action he is going to take. No, it’s much easier to live without it. Regret doesn’t change anything, just makes him think about the ’ what could’ve beens’.
He regrets leaving Gojo Satoru behind, anyway. Maybe things could’ve gone differently, maybe with the right circumstances, his point of view would’ve correlated more with the person he used to be. Maybe he and Satoru wouldn’t be enemies. Wouldn’t have switched roles . What could’ve been is more of a blessing in this case. A daydream he occasionally used to indulge in, knowing it was nothing more than a dream and that he was content with his current life.
Enemies is a strong and slightly unfitting word to describe his relationship with Gojo Satoru. They had loved and continued to love each other with such fierceness, even when standing on opposite sides. You couldn’t love Gojo Satoru in a superficial way, he was way too annoying for that. It had to be all-consuming or else he would drive you mad.
What kind of love it had been, it was , that he still couldn’t say. The lines had started to blur over time. ‘Enemies’ would never be right. If they were enemies, then Satoru wouldn't have pushed his execution back by a decade. If they were enemies, then Satoru wouldn’t have looked like he was ripping his own heart out when he whispered such fond last words to him, back by the alleyway.
They had been each other's only friend, but only by definition because Shoko “didn’t do friendships”. All three of them knew it was bullshit, that she loved them just as much as they loved each other, just in a different way, her own quiet brand of love.
Suguru had always wondered what it would be like to see the world through her eyes. To not care as much, not because of egoism but because of- he doesn’t really know. It is difficult to put Ieiri Shoko into words.
The cashier is awake when he leaves. They look at him in drowsy suspicion, but he just smiles as a silent greeting, as if he wasn‘t carrying stolen goods in his arms. Maybe he looks too miserable to be worth an intervention because the cashier just raises an eyebrow and goes back to sleep.
Their reaction reminds him of Shoko again. He misses her. Her sarcasm and snark, her little fond smiles, even her smoking habit. It’s impossible to say what became of her, really. He knows a few details. She’s a doctor now and made her knowledge of reversed cursed energy her life. But he wants to know if she grieved after learning about his death, if she blamed Satoru, or if she just shook her head and smiled sadly.
It hurts to become distant to a friend. Especially if it’s a friendship as close as his and Satoru’s, bordering on something else.
The air seems even colder than before and Suguru shivers. The bandages are keeping him more or less warm, but his clothing is still torn. The situation would almost be beautiful in a hopeful kind of way, if he didn’t think about killing that cashier a few seconds ago. But he supposes that there’s a certain beauty to be found in death. He can understand it now better than ever.
Black hair, blood in the white snow. It‘s almost like a fairytale, one without a happy ending.
Suguru realizes that he didn‘t think about what to do next after stepping outside. But there‘s a faint idea in his stolen brain of what the future might bring. Maybe his ‘ What could’ve been‘ can transform into a ‘ What could be‘ , he thinks. Maybe he can reunite with them, be the old Geto Suguru again. He’s tired now.
He knows he won’t be able to truly change himself into a person the Jujutsu World would deem morally acceptable enough to be left alive and unattended.
But maybe, in secret, just for a little while. Reunite with Satoru, Shoko. Work through some stuff. Figure out what to do now, get on his feet again, search for Mimiko and Nanako. Find a way to transform this world into a version where he can keep laughing. Where he doesn’t have to be separated from the people he loves.
Suguru knows it’s just wishful thinking. But he’s just been reborn again and everything in his body yearns . Yearns for things he didn’t get to have. So he makes a decision; one he will not regret but maybe judge as unreasonable in the future.
It’s Christmas Eve, after all.
Gojo Satoru finds Getou Suguru on the 25th of December, 2018. Satoru has been out of that damn box for merely a week now.
It took him a while, readjusting to reality again. Inside the realm he‘d lost all his sense of space and time, there was just him, him, him and his thoughts driving him mad. They slipped out of his brain and floated around him, circling and circling until he felt disconnected to them as if he was seeing himself with somebody else’s eyes.
The strongest sorcerer, who had achieved greatness by merely being born, sitting in a tiny box surrounded by grinning skulls, waiting to be rescued like a damsel in distress, all because he was still deeply in love with someone he had personally sent to the afterlife. Maybe it was his imagination, but the skulls had laughed at him, again and again and again. It could have been a few hours or a few centuries or everything in between, he only has the other‘s words to rely on.
Satoru got out, eventually. For every story about imprisoning a god, there is always one about said god emerging from their prison, either to bring peace or to herald the end of the universe. It was not the end when he got out, but it felt like it. He saw the sky again and the first thing he noticed was death ; not the kind he enjoys spreading, but the cruel one, the one that directly affects him and the people he loves.
He‘s tired, now.
The box did something to him, forced a god to his knees, and made him a shadow of his former self. Give him some time and he will build himself up again, he doesn‘t doubt it. But It‘s new to him, being weak; it sparks an identity crisis he‘s not ready to deal with, yet.
The school feels like a last sanctuary. The kids are okay, Shoko is as tired as ever, the building is still standing. They managed, without him. (He tries not to think about Nobara‘s eye or Maki and Yuji‘s scars or Nanami. )
Shoko insists on daily check-ups and Satoru complies. He‘s sitting on a chair in the school’s infirmary, wearing casual clothes, glasses resting on his nose. Shoko is muttering something to herself, her cursed energy output as steady and soothing as ever. It makes looking at her all the more comfortable.
„Gojo-sensei!“
Satoru looks up. Yuji is standing in the doorframe, eyes widened in what looks like fear. Panic rises in Satoru‘s chest. They have just managed to feel safe again, he doesn‘t want their peace to be disturbed this early on. He didn‘t even have time to grieve properly.
Yuji catches his breath.
„Kenjaku, he‘s - he‘s standing outside.“
„He‘s WHAT?“
Satoru gets up immediately, his infinity flickers and Shoko protests.
„No one‘s hurt, he‘s just standing there. Said I should get you, you‘d understand. I didn‘t know what to do, sensei. He seems different.“
Oh.
Oh.
Satoru freezes. His panic subsides. Oh, he knows what this is about. There‘s no room for hesitation, he hears his student‘s words and knows. He’s been waiting. There‘d been this certainty in his chest since yesterday, but he didn‘t know what it referred to. Now he does. (So well.)
„We tried attacking him, but he seems to be hurt, he didn‘t even try to defend himself.“
Satoru doesn‘t know how to react. He looks to Shoko in search of an answer, but she‘s just looking at him, a faint smile on her lips.
„Get him in here. I‘m gonna make him whole again so he can properly get his ass kicked.“
Her voice is the same as always, but he knows her. There will be this pained look on her face as soon as they leave the room and she will lean against the table for support, laughing quietly. He turns his infinity off.
„Shoko“, he says softly.
„Oh, the strongest sorcerer in the world needs a hug, now? Just go, Satoru. Bring him home.“
„Shut up .“
If he doesn‘t hug her right now, they will both break apart later. It‘s a safety precaution. She sighs.
„Sensei, this is kind of an emergency“, Yuji pleads and Satoru rests his cheek on Shoko‘s hair so he can look at his student, arms wrapped around the doctor. She‘s nearly as cold as the bodies she works with and barely tall enough that she can rest her head in the crook of his neck. Satoru can‘t remember the last time they hugged; when he came back last year without a body to show, she just looked at him with an expression that is still haunting his dreams.
„Alright, let‘s do this“, he murmurs and lets her go.
„No matter how this goes, I‘m gonna make so many jokes at your expense“, she snickers and pats him on the back.
„You can be such a bitch sometimes.“
„That‘s your influence.“
„Sensei! “
„Yes, I‘m coming. With your reaction, one could almost think our main enemy is standing in front of our doorstep.“
Yuji just stares at him in disbelief.
„Kugisaki and Fushiguro have cornered him, but he‘s suspicious, sensei. We don‘t know what he wants.“
„Right.“
Satoru can feel his student‘s confusion radiating off him in waves. He‘s not in the mood to explain now; his mind hasn‘t quite caught up with the situation yet. There‘s just a single thought in his head, repeating over and over again as if it has to make up for all the years Satoru forbade himself from thinking it.
Suguru, Suguru, Suguru.
It‘s snowing when they step outside. The whole world is covered in white as if to hide the dirt beneath. Somewhere behind the white clouds, the sun is forbidden from melting it and letting the world move on. Snow makes the world slower, number. It makes Satoru’s head quieter.
His breath evaporates in the cold and he takes a deep breath, letting the icy air fill his lungs. His peculiar calmness also begins to affect Yuji. There’s no need to worry; is there ever, with Gojo Satoru present? He’s the strongest, after all.
Frozen trees border the stairway up to the school, silhouettes stuck in time and space. Nobara and Megumi turn around when they arrive, confusion and fear contorting their features, weapons ready to strike. Satoru stops at the top of the stairs and looks down, taking in the situation. He lets his glasses slide down a bit so they’re not in his view anymore. This is what his life has led to. It’s unexpected, he has to admit. He’s dreamt of it happening; he hopes reality will be more merciful than his imagination is.
His best friend is standing in the middle of one of the platforms between stairs. His hair is disheveled, loosely falling over his shoulders and into his eyes. He looks like shit, wearing a hoodie and pants that look like he pulled them out of a dumpster. His eyes look tired, sunken in, pale skin nearly glowing in the cold winter light. It’s obvious he’s in pain.
Soft , Satoru thinks. Suguru looks soft in a way that reminds Satoru of their teenage years. Silence surrounds them for a few moments. They both take the chance to look at each other without the expectation of a fight. It‘s been over a year now, hasn‘t it. But one year is nothing in comparison to the decade before that.
Satoru thinks about killing him.
“Hello, old friend”, he says instead, a smile on his lips.
“Your soul knows, hm?”, Suguru answers and it sounds so painfully like him. “When did you become such a sap?”
“I was just telling the truth.”
“Yeah, well. There are a lot of truths we gotta talk about, aren’t there? But it’d appreciate it if we could do it inside.”
„Are you gonna try to kill my students again?“
„Does it look like I could? You flatter me.“
He is right. Suguru couldn’t even lift a finger against them if he wanted to. Kenjaku had stolen his body, deconstructed its original owner so he had to find a way to piece himself back together. He looks like he could fall apart any minute now, shatter into millions of fragments Satoru would have to collect one by one.
This should feel like a victory. Suguru is standing beneath Satoru, having found his way back to the very man that killed him. It should feel like a surrender and yet, the only thing Satoru sees them as is two of the most powerful sorcerers, fallen from grace, resurrected in a world neither of them wants to claim as their own.
Satoru has always been a fool, hasn’t he. Love, the most twisted curse of them all and yet here they were. He sighs, steps down the stairs to look at Suguru up close. His hunched over posture makes it so he has to look up to meet Satoru’s Six Eyes. Satoru’s soul doesn’t even doubt.
“You made me wait, you bastard”, Satoru says, before catching a falling Suguru in his arms so he doesn’t collapse outside, in the winter’s cold.
It’s warmer inside the school building. They still have hot chocolate and Christmas to celebrate.
Getou Suguru comes home on the 25th of December, 2018.